Second Experian Hard Pull for credit card approval

[fleetfoot]

On December 4th I applied and was immediately approved for a Chase Marriott Boundless credit card.  Feeling good about the approval, I then applied that same day for a Citi Simplicity for its generous balance transfer offer.  I was immediately denied.  I received the denial letter yesterday which gave the reason as "too many recent credit inquiries."  I took a day to organize my thoughts after reading suggestions on myFICO about how to approach reconsideration.  I called the reconsideration line and pled my case.  The representative was very encouraging and said that the "too many recent inquiries" were likely because of the two same-day inquiries by Chase and Citi.  She suggested that I would likely be approved if she ran the application again now that one week had now passed.  The kicker was that an additional hard pull was required.  She indicated that without that additional hard pull my chances of approval was zero.  I reluctantly agreed to the additional pull and I was instantly approved for the card.  I will now transfer other balances onto the Simplicity card for the 0% balance transfer offer.  I am happy about the approval.  I am not happy with the additional hard pull exactly seven days later by Citi.  I'd like some thoughts about filing a dispute with Experian over the multiple pulls by Citi within seven calendar days.  Would it cause more harm than good?  Should I just be grateful that I achieved what I had set out to accomplish and let it rest?  Thanks.

[JoeRockhead]

I'm going to vote let it be, and enjoy your wins. You'll get those points back in the coming months. Congratulations on the approvals.

[fleetfoot]

Thanks JoeRockhead for your vote.  I'm thinking that it is best to leave in alone and call it a win.  But it is tempting to complain and dispute about the double pull.

[DXness]

There isn't anything to dispute - you applied for credit three times, so all three pulls are technically accurate.  Experian will just tell you that and not remove them.  I'd just take the wins you got and leave things be.  You have 38 years of credit history, 3 inqs are pretty insignificant on such a profile.  They'll stop impacting your scores and then drop off and life goes on.

[Patient957]

I agree you should just leave it alone.  It's worth noting that the inquiries might get de-duped for Fico scoring purposes anyway.

[GZG]

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@JoeRockhead wrote:

I'm going to vote let it be, and enjoy your wins. You'll get those points back in the coming months. Congratulations on the approvals.

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agree with this, you have no grounds to dispute.

you could always ask citi to remove the first inquiry, but honestly the overseas rep on the phone is more likely to close out the account you opened then get your inquiry removed. 

also, if you had asked about your app plans, we could have warned you that citi would automatically deny for any inquires within the last 7 days.

[coldfusion]

Citibank is fairly well known for requests to reconsider a CC denial having the srong possibility of triggering an additional inquiry.   As mentioned upthread this isn't something that can be addressed via a dispute with the CRA and while you could try filing a complaint with the FDIC or CFPB it almost certainly wouldn't go anywhere as your requesting a reconsideration gave Citi permissible purpose for the additional inquiry.  About the best you can do is to reach out to Citibank's executive office and ask that they withdraw* the second inquiry, but if you do that you will need to keep your expectations in check regarding a positive outcome.

* "withdraw" is the exact and correct term that identifies the exact procedure you would want Citibank to follow,  the withdrawal is a 2 part process executed using a series of formally choreographed steps that they initiate which leads to the inquiry being deleted entirely from your credit profile, there is no recoding or any artifact remaining on your credit report.

[fleetfoot]

Thank you coldfusion for your input.  I'm going to just let the issue lie there.  I have no upcoming need for an auto loan or a mortgage refinance.  We will be staying put for some time.  If, we need access to a loan or new mortgage I will try to address the double pull at that time.  It's highly unlikely we will need any financing before the inquiries fall off in December '26 anyway.

[SouthJamaica]

1. I don't think you have a basis for disputing it.

2. As @Patient957 noted, there's a good chance the second one won't be counted in scoring.

You're right to have decided to just let it be.

Congratulations on the approvals.

[fleetfoot]

Thanks South Jamaica for your thoughts on this issue, as well as others in the past.  You are certainly a valuable contributor to these forums.